This morning (Sunday), Arabs set fire to an illegal waste disposal site near the Sha'ar Binyamin industrial area, after many warnings from the Binyamin Regional Council to the Civil Administration that the lack of enforcement would lead to the burning of the mountain of garbage and air pollution.
The large waste site is located in front of the settlement of Migron in Benjamin and is used as a place for dumping garbage illegally by Arabs from the surrounding area on an industrial scale.
Binyamin Regional Council chairman Yisrael Gantz said that the council warned dozens of times in writing and orally, but the issue was not addressed.
"The Civil Administration is negligent in its duties. Every day many fires burn in the area and those who breathe this pollution are not only the residents of Binyamin but also the residents of Jerusalem, Modi'in, and the center whose health is affected. They breathe in a cancerous substance and do not know that it comes from here because of the Civil Administration's failures," Gantz said.
He added: "We also submitted documentation of the dumping of waste by Arab criminals on this site, we warned that without enforcement and without effective punishment the mountain of waste will be filled with garbage and finally ignited, as has happened several times in the past. Unfortunately, no steps were taken to prevent this. This is a certificate of poverty for the state, for the Civil Administration, and all the enforcement agencies that allow such air pollution to happen."
Gantz further stated that "since Environmental Protection Minister Idit Silman entered her office, there has been significant progress in the state's attitude to environmental hazards and actions are currently being taken to amend the law so that it will give tools to all enforcement agencies to act effectively against the perpetrators of this harm to the environment. I call on the government to speed up its work in this area and immediately apply the Environmental Protection Laws in Judea and Samaria."
The Binyamin Regional Council demanded that the perpetrators of the fire be arrested and tried to the fullest extent of the law.